


A vista de pájaro

by korereapers



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Closeted Character, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Richie getting weirded out by the mere fact of being perceived, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Stan getting weirded out by things that make no sense, Stanley Uris Lives, Stanley Uris is a Good Friend, aka the most valid eddie, book and movies canon mixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korereapers/pseuds/korereapers
Summary: Stan has always been a perceptive one. Richie has always been good at hiding.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	A vista de pájaro

**Author's Note:**

> Or "Stan saves the day, yet again"

“What a weird hat.”

Stan lifts his eyes from his book. He was reading about crows, and his first thought is that the voice kind of screeches like one.

The kid looking at him isn’t a crow, though. He does have black hair, and his eyes do look dark behind the glasses, but he wouldn’t know, given how thick the lenses are.

_ That’s not a crow _ , he thinks.  _ More like a bat. _

“Who?” he answers, an eyebrow raised. They have mocked him enough for his kippah. He is not giving anyone else that kind of satisfaction.

He has thought about not wearing it, sometimes. It’s not that he always wears it, but his parents insist it’s an important part of who he is, of who they are. That he should be proud of it.

It’s difficult to be proud of it when it gets taken and thrown like a frisbee every single week. He is being incredibly lucky this time. Maybe not for long.

"And those clothes?” the other child insists, flocking around him.

Stan sighs, and closes his book. He is not wearing anything unusual, nothing other kids would identify as “jewish”. Just a regular shirt, a bowtie, and trousers with suspenders. It’s fall, and his parents want him to have appropriate clothes no matter the occasion.

“What about yours?” he blurts out, without thinking. The words feel heavy as soon as he says them, and he tries not to look too scared when he looks at the other kid. He has enough with Bowers and his gang. He doesn’t really want to get hit and mocked at even  _ more _ .

The kid looks at him, and then at himself, though. No animosity coming from him. He is quiet and still for a moment, to Stan’s surprise. He doesn’t look like it’s physically possible for him to be quiet and still. He’ll burst.

The child is wearing weird clothes. An open shirt with a t-shirt underneath, both of them with different logos and patterns and colors that do not match. He is wearing shorts, even when it’s not really that warm anymore, and his knees are all bruised and scrawny. His sneakers are untied, and Stan smiles a little.

_ What a weird kid _ .

He looks properly at his glasses, then. They’re broken, and there’s duct tape holding them together, holding the kid together before he explodes and opens his dirty mouth again. 

_ Oh _ . Stan realises.  _ I know who he is _ .

“Fair enough, I guess.” the kid, Richie, says.

Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier, that’s who he is. He has been beaten and bullied by Bowers’ gang since forever, apparently. Nothing “wrong” with him. Not gay (as far as he knows), not black, not weak, not sick in any way. Not  _ jewish _ , like him. Just a big mouth, and glasses that are way too big for his face.

“I’m sorry.” Stan says, and he means it. It’s not like himself, to say things without thinking. Things that might hurt. Things that may get him in trouble.

He sees a sparrow flying around the neighborhood from the corner of his eye. Richie is smiling.

“You’re a funny guy, Stanislav.”

Stan blinks, once, twice, because he doesn’t really remember telling Richie his name. Maybe he has heard about him, about the jewish kid that gets beaten and laughed at every day. He has approached him despite that, despite the danger. Or maybe, even  _ because  _ of it.

Stanley’s eyes are dark, deep in thought. He is happy, and he doesn’t understand.

Richie reaches out, after a way too dramatic reverence, for a handshake. Stan laughs a little, and looks at his hand. It’s dirty, nails a little eaten. Full of bandaids.

He reaches out too, anyways.

* * *

If anything, Stan can pride himself on his perceptiveness.

They are friends, all of them, but if Stanley really, really thinks about it, he believes he is the one that gets Richie best.

They are all a little less bashful when Beverly is not around, and of course that’s the moment Richie chooses to take out his porn stash.

Women in lingerie, with impossible breasts and waists and hips. He has known many adult women, and none of them look like this. Stan is a man of science, and erotic magazines weird him out inmensely.

“Look at what I got.” Richie murmurs, his voice shaky, oddly proud. He is smiling, and Stanley knows why.

Richie looks up at Eddie. Not him. Not Bill, or Mike, or Ben. Just Eddie, whose face is a little flushed, dark eyes so wide he looks like a scared animal, his lips twitching a little.

Stan rolls his eyes, wishing Bev comes back soon so he doesn’t have to deal with this bullshit.

As it turns out, Richie is indeed a little gay. A  _ little _ .

Eddie doesn't really look at the photos. He does, at first, with a hint of something that Stan doesn't really see in Bill's eyes. Nor Ben's, or Mike's.

Eddie then looks at Richie, and Richie perks up visibly. He does get happier when Eddie looks at him, now that Stan thinks about it. Always wanting to make him laugh, always seeking his attention.

_ Oh _ . So that's it. Years of Bowers' gang calling Eddie a  _ sissy queerboy _ , of writing about how Trashmouth likes sucking dick on the toilet door. None of the Losers have ever questioned it. None of the boys have ever denied it, either.

Like a secret that everyone knows, but they refuse to acknowledge, to the point it becomes impossible to talk about.

Eddie's eyelashes are long, his blush spreading around his face, dark eyes swifty, moving quickly, restlessly. Richie smiles, like Ben smiles at Beverly, most of the time.

_ So neither of them knows. _

Stan rolls his eyes again. He is sure that if Bev was here, she would be smiling at him, because she would understand. It's Ben who looks at him, a shy smile on his lips. He nods, softly, and Stan groans. Mike frowns at him a little, but smiles when Stan points at the two boys.

Bill remains blissfully unaware, as always. For as much as he (and everyone, really) admires him, Stan wishes he were him.

He isn’t sure if the rest of them know. They do know those two dumbasses have something special, but love? Love is a whole different matter. Love is what makes Ben’s eyes shine when Beverly enters the clubhouse, her smile tired, a cigarette in her mouth.

“What have I missed?”

Eddie immediately starts coughing, panicking, and Richie not so discreetly hides his magazines. Ben waves a little, the sweetest smile on his chubby face. Bill looks up, blushing violently, his face as red as his hair.

“Not much.” Mike answers, an easy smile on his lips. Saving their asses in a second, typical Mike. “What about you?”

Stan looks at Richie, nervous Richie, with eyes conveniently hidden behind his glasses. He purses his lips, and decides to wait.

Bev has a new bruise on her forearm. Only Stan seems to notice.

“Not much, either.”

She doesn’t stop smiling, and Stan’s eyes darken in pure, unadulterated rage. She is his friend, all of them are.

He feels like a coward when he is unable to say a thing. He despises the feeling.

* * *

As it turns out, Stan gets tired of waiting. And of being a coward, if he is completely honest.

Nobody would ever think of Richie as a romantic. Stan knows better. He sees how Richie looks at Eddie when he believes that nobody notices. His expression softening, the genuine concern when Eddie has a coughing fit. The way he slowly approaches him, almost too casually, wanting to be close, never daring to touch him for too long. How his eyes shine, a true smile on them, when Eddie laughs.

It’s painful to watch. The absurd amount of pining. Richie’s long hands shaking when Stan confronts him. Because he knows. Because he knows that Stan knows, and he is terrified.

Pennywise knew better than any of them. He wasn’t there when it happened, too busy almost getting killed, but Big Bill told him. Pennywise had manifested as Eddie dying, vomiting blood while emerging from a mattress, while looking at Richie directly in the eye.

He doesn’t know what Richie saw while he was alone and scared, but Stanley knows that Richie fucking Tozier is not scared of clowns.

It doesn’t take a genius to know what scares him the most. And Stan has always been a pragmatic soul at heart. Even if a little hypocritical, sometimes.

“You should tell him.”

Richie is strangely rigid. His long limbs don’t move, and Richie is only still when he is terrified. Stan is his friend, his best friend, and he knows that much.

“Tell who what, Stanley?” his voice sounds harsh, raspy. In denial. Pretending that everything is alright, that it’s not obvious that Stan knows.

Stan reaches out, to touch his shoulder. Richie moves, as if his touch burned, and Stan understands, but it still hurts. It hurts, it hurts so much.

“I am just trying to help, Richie.”

“Well, don’t.” Richie spits.

Stan makes a face, and Richie’s eyes become duller, sadder. He hates seeing his best friend like this, but sometimes, even Stan gets tired of being understanding.

* * *

“I was scared of touching boys.” Richie tells him once, as adults. “Scared that if I touched them, then everyone would know.”

They’re sitting on Stan’s porch, in Atlanta. Patty is fast asleep inside, tired after what Stan suspects it has been the most stressing experience in his life, and he has fought a pedophage clown from outer space. Twice.

Childbirth is scary, and once again, Stan wonders about the logistics of it all. It’s scary, he thinks. Women’s bodies are strong, and scary, and he admires his wife even more.

He has a daughter now. After everything that has happened. He finally has a daughter.

And of course, Richie had to be the kid’s godfather. He was (still is) Stan’s best friend, back in the day, and Patty had supported the choice wholeheartedly. She has trouble understanding, sometimes, what the Losers have been through.

As it turns out, unconditional support is always more important than complete understanding.

"Richie, you don't have to tell me-"

Richie raises his hand, interrupting him. The air is fresh at sunset, and the beers they’re both drinking are maybe way too cold for an afternoon in the middle of september.

"Shut up, I want to."

Stan tries not to look at him. Richie never liked looking vulnerable, no matter who is in front of him. So unlike Eddie, that was never truly delicate, but whose smile was always soft, sweet, and vulnerable.

Stan can understand why Richie fell in love with him.

“It has always been him, Stan. Before I even knew what love was.”

Stan’s breath gets caught in his throat.

“I know.” he says, and he means it. Because even when he wasn’t conscious himself, deep down he did know.

He sees Richie smile from the corner of his eye.

“You should tell him.”

Richie lets out a chuckle. A little bitter, so unlike him, and yet so very like him, like the true self that emerges sometimes, that is the core of Stan’s best friend.

“You give the worst advice sometimes, Stanislav. Listen to me. It fucking sucks.”

Stan rolls his eyes, and takes a sip from his drink. He is tired, so very tired, because tiny Isabel won’t stop crying in the middle of the night, but he has dealt with this before. As kids, and then with Patty. He has gotten better at it with time.

He can do it again.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, his voice firm yet gentle. He knows the answer, because he has asked Patty the same thing again and again, for years. Before, during, and after therapy.

He knows the answer before Richie even dares to open his mouth.

“Always, Staniel.”

“Then trust me on this.”

Richie takes a big sip from his beer, his sight unfocused behind the glasses. Opaque, without much shine for a moment, until they start sizzling again.

“I’ll give it a thought. Are you happy now?”

Stan lets out one of his easy half smiles. They are not hugging, but inside, they might as well be.

“I am.”

And that’s about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus Christ, Stan is HARD to write
> 
> Come and be mad at me at @lehoiurdin on tumblr, and at @korepers on twitter


End file.
